Water main break closes school for day

A Lincoln County charter school campus in Denver was shut down Wednesday following a water main break.

Itâ€™s the second time in a year that a water main has broken near Lincoln Charterâ€™s K-5 Denver campus, school officials said.

However, they praised county public works crews for doing a good job of notifying the school about the break.

The incident occurred around 5 a.m. near the southbound lane of N.C. 16 in front of the schoolâ€™s driveway.

Nearly 20 county trucks were still working the site around 2 p.m., and one lane of traffic remained shut down on the highway.

Barry McKinnon, senior utility engineer at Lincoln County Public Works, told the Times-News late Wednesday afternoon that the break more than likely occurred because it was an old line. In addition, pressure often builds up in the line over night, he said.

Water was restored to the school by lunch time.

County officials said the roadway in front of the school had to be repaved and reopened Thursday.

McKinnon noted that crews were waiting for the asphalt to cool before reopening the stretch of N.C. 16.

The school did not shut down following a similar incident last spring, school officials said. However, water was shut off to the campus for at least an hour at that time.

The Denver campus was open and back to its regular scheduled routine on Thursday.